Of Course caed would say "BEER"

Back in November the kids and I boarded a plane to attend a homeschool week. It is really fantastic that once in a while these are held to help out us parents who homeschool in places that our kids get very little same language interaction with peers. This was Caed's first one and he had such a blast. 

My little travelers. I think this was Beatrice's 17th flight in 13 months...

The theme was knights and castles - they did tons of singing, dancing, art, reading and acting

One of my closest friends out here and I got to get away for a few hours and enjoy a real treat - Starbucks! In a clean new mall. Where no one was smoking. It was bliss.

Another very special treat - McDonalds!!! I don't know if you can count McDonalds as special until you live somewhere with no hamburgers for months on end :)

And we got to shop at H&M, and spend some Christmas money. Why do so many clothes have cats in them? Is that a thing in the States too?

Caed and his buddy practicing for their performance

And we met a boy with a pet lizard - highlight of Caeds time of course. 

He loves his art time

All boys, I don't get it but there is really an abundance of boy expat children out here! Made for a very rowdy week

my loves

I took Beia to some free gymborre classes there - she loves it!

dance dance

little knight

castle building

And the there is the beer. On their first day they made this circle chart of things you can fine in a castle and things you can find at home, and things in both. When I picked C up I saw one of the answers was "Beer" and right away new that it was him who had said it. I called Sean and told him and we both laughed out loud at our funny, observant boy. 

First Day of School

School officially started for Caed today. He went all summer to youeryuan (Chinese pre-school) but it was kind of like summer school where they put all the kids in one big class. Tomorrow will be his first day of "Zhong Ban" the middle class at Chinese school (He goes on tuesday and Thursday). Today he started at the HERC though so we took our pictures and did our interview this morning. He was very excited as there is now one more new boy in their class (last year it was just him and G). 

Man it is hard to get a normal smile out of him...

I saw this interview idea on pinterest and did it with C this am:

1. How old are you and what grade are you in? I'm 4, I go to HERC and zhong ban

2. What is your favorite color? Light green

3. What is your favorite food? Chicken leg

4. What is your favorite book? Curious George and the Bunny

5. What is your favorite song? God Made Everything

6. What is your favorite game to play? The shield game

7. Where is your favorite place to go? XingYi {this is the place we went on vacation this summer with the water park}

8. Who is your best friend? Grady

9. How would you describe yourself? Loving boy and a strong boy

10. What is something mommy always says? I love you very much. 

11. What is something daddy always says? I love you very very much

12. What do you want to be when you grow up? A police officer

13. What are three things you'd like to learn about this year? Bugs, spiders and stories

14. Where do you think you'll live when your adult? Far far far away in Xing Yi. 

15. If you could have any super power what would it be and why? Fire because it's my favorite power.

 16. If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why? Super hero city to the heli-carrier to play with the Super Hero Squad

17. What makes your family special? We say I love you

So fun - love it. Now if I can only remember to do this once a year for the next 14 years :) I am sure most of these answers would be different if I asked him tomorrow but the ones I think that would stay the same are 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11 :)

Experiments

I'll admit I have been totally lacking with the themes 'school' with C. But we have still been keeping ourselves busy doing lots of 'science stuff' together. Most ideas are from pinterest or that Berensteins Bears Big Book of Nature (I think its called that).

Here we set up string with little pieces of straw on it, then tapes a balloon to each straw and it is balloon race time. 

Getting better at writing and other pre-k skills

rubber band painting his thank you cards

pony bead melting - he kept saying he was making 'fractals'

 (anyone else's child ever watched Super Hero Squad????)

p.s. he is naked b/c he didn't want to get his clothes dirty during the painting time that came before this..

LOVE that profile... ahhh heart melting

There was a family day at preschool last week where they showed us all their dances. Caed has become way into 'dancing' lately. He shows us all the moves that his teacher teaches him. Yesterday we were in town and a clothing place was playing loud music and he says, "Um I think I need to go in there and dance for a little bit" - which he did, with some hilarious moves we had never seen, and then pouted about having to leave (until we told him we could have a family dance night at home). And Sean and I were like "Who's child is that???" and Sean said - "Your's dear, I was never like that, this behavior has Nicole written all over it". Right after we left we saw a group of kids playing on the steps and C goes,

"I need to stop and play with them for a while because I think they want to play with me." - Yep definitely mommy genes. 

Here is me when I was maybe 3? Minus dark hair and eyes I see lots of C in this pic :)

Making a volcano erupt, by far his favorite, just look...

at his excited face!

LOVE love love this boyo. 

Snake Bubbles and Germ Spreading

Today was one of Caeds 'homeschool' days. I haven't done any real units or lesson planning since January (!). But I still try to devote the morning to doing one on one activities with him. This am I saw this quick easy project on Pinterest called "snake bubbles"

You just cut the end off of a bottle (water, soda juice) and put a sock over the cut off end, secure with a rubber band. Then make a mixture 1 part dish soap/1 part water. Dip sock in soap and blow... 

(the site I got it from added food coloring to sock too to make rainbow snakes but that didnt work to well for us). 

C made a few with great success but then he inhaled while his mouth was on the bottle and got a mouth full of soapy bubbles, after that he thought only I should blow them and he would chase/pop.

On the way home we found two cool looking bugs so we stopped by the HERC (this is a super cool education resource center in our city set up by a foreigner for foreigners) to take a closer look at them.

We tried with the microscope too but that didn't work. I need to revisit some science tutorials (I haven't used a microscope since 9th grade!) I think it is for looking at super super small things???

Best part of the day, C wanted to show his classmates and teachers the bubble snake. So I took him to school this afternoon and showed them all. Even though I warned them that if kids try they will probably suck it in they wanted to let them all have a go at it (this is where the germ spreading comes in, as every student and teacher proceeded to take turns blowing on this bottle). And seriously almost every kid that did it sucked bubble into their mouths. It was pretty funny :) They kept coming back though after washing out their mouths with soap. 

Last thing accomplished today was this little bookof songs for C's room. We try to sing a song every night as a family before he goes to bed. And S and I don't know all he words to the ones he keeps choosing so I made this today for his room. 

Also I have to say how much I love this "Time Timer" my MIL sent me. We used them in the classrooms when I was in the states. You pull out the red to a time say 15 min and the red disappears as it counts down. We use this all the time :) As in "25 min until we have to leave" "10 more minutes of reading time (or tv or game time)" etc. It's a good way for him to visually see how much time is left.

Little Tub Big Boy

Just look how funny this boy is, so in want of a bath that I found him in this 'mini tub' during his shower.

Last January we went to a wedding in the village. That husband left soon after to work on East coast and wife moved to our city to prepare to have baby. Well MeiMei (little sister) was born June 4th. She plans to take baby back to village after a month, we will be sad to see her go as we have enjoyed the past 5 months with her! Hopefully he will enjoy his own little sister more. I had to bribe him into holding this baby for a picture!

Caed has been notorious for wanting nothing to do with drawing/writing/coloring in the past. I don't push it (I figure he will do everything in his own time) but I try to give him chances to use these skills. Well in the last two week I have noticed that his coloring has improved a ton (well all he would do was scribble before so anything is an improvement...) Anyway he is trying to stay in lines and use different colors. So I am proud ;) Maybe he will have a desire to write letters soon.

So far the only thing he will draw on his own is spiders. But now I have lots of picture of happy/sad spiders

Painting water over his name in chalk.

 (I tried this a few months ago and he wouldn't do it but today he did great). 

During this time he also looked up to the ceiling and shook his head back and forth and said, 

"Mommy look my hair is tickling my back and it feel so good!"

Saw this on pinterest, using old toilet paper tubes, hot glue and paint to make a hotwheel hotel. We had fun painting this :)

Baby! 22 weeks :) I really need to put some decorations up in the dining room...

Catch Up

For a while now we have been saving all sorts of 'garbage' for our building box. Here we took turns building a home for a transformer.

Obviously the best part was when the other transformer came along and knocked it down

We reorganized the school room a while back. We moved the futon in there (not in the picture) so guests can be in there too. I love having a couch to sit and read on with C. The poster above his table is also a new addition. 

Here is a super low quality example of the poster (the real file was 421 MB?!). The idea was from pinterest but I designed it myself with Photoshop. 

Funny note the third font down that says "Always tell the truth" totally looks like my dad's handwriting! I'm right aren't I mom???

Most of the 'rules' are phrases from this great handout that I have called "Wise Words For Mom's" by Ginger Plowman. Of this she says, "In a handy quick-reference calendar style format Wise Words for Moms identifies 22 behavior problems in children (such as disobeying, lying and tattling) and offers examples of Scripture passages that help parents address heart issues. "

Caed and I usually pick out one or two and talk them over during our school time. We try to think of examples of how to say 'be considerate' and talk about the verses that go along with it. 

Learning to play Carcassone with Daddy - we are games people :)

Mothers Day